Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday October 26, 2007 @08:10PM
from the read-the-fine-print dept.

An anonymous reader passed us a link to Shack News, which is reporting on official commentary from Doug Lombardi of Valve about the international Orange Box code problem we talked about yesterday. According to Lombardi, the folks who bought copies of the game from a Thai gaming store are pretty much out of luck. They'll need to buy a local copy to have a working version. That said, they should be able to replace the old code with a new one. "'Some of these users have subsequently purchased a legal copy after realizing the issue and were having difficulty removing the illegitimate keys from their Steam accounts,' added Lombardi. 'Anyone having this problem should contact Steam Support to have the Thai key removed from their Steam account.'"

Then again, I could imagine it would be a reasonable compromise for Valve to check you actually played the game for an extended period of time in Russia...

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I imagine it's reasonable for Valve to quick fucking with products people paid good money for and breaking things via remote control just because they're greedy. So a product moved across a national border or an ocean or whatever -- big deal. Happens all the time and that's the nature of the modern world. The copy from India or Taiwan or whatever was legal and I'm sure Valve would prefer that it stay far, far away from the more profitable countries (so as to not illustrate the price disparity) but that's not reality.

Put simply: The customer bought something from an authorized vendor; there was an exchange of good for payment. Give them their game, Valve, or return them their money. Anything less makes you a common thief. End of story.

To do this then, maybe they should just keep the price the same in all countries, if it is worth US$50, then convert that to any other country and sell it for that price. Oh wait, now people in countries with lower average incomes see the converted price as much higher then what you see it as. Now Valve can either sell the game everywhere at the price and screw over countries whose citizens don't make as much on average, or they can region-lock those countries and offer them a lower price on the game. It se

Your comparison is a horrible one; the Mig 29 would not be legal for you to buy here, either, due to weapons restrictions. You could just as well say that you weren't allowed to import all that pot you bought in Amsterdam to the US.

Your example has nothing to do with it being from a foreign country. It is all about legality of the product in this country.

Actually, you're incorrect. It is perfectly legal to own a US Figther Jet. Getting a hold of them is the trick. Actually anything prior to the F-14 is pretty easy to get, aircraft since then is a lot harder, because most of them are still in service and the government hasn't released them. Owning a jet simply takes one step... having the government officially "demilitarize" it. Once that is done, they can be sold to private individuals. Demilitarizing them simply ensures that no advanced equipment works, like Weapons, Radar, Radar Jamming equipment, etc. They don't want it to fall into the wrong hands. (Think about the F-14s and Iran.)

In fact, owning Soviet based aircraft is legal as well, you just can't import it, just like you said, because of it's classification as a weapon. The ATF doesn't like it. If someone was able to produce a copy of the MiG from the ground up in the US then it would be perfectly legal to own and fly it under the Experimental Aircraft category.

I suspect people are screaming bloody murder because they didn't read the article (Cue: You must be new here jokes).

Heres what it comes down to. Video games cost a shit ton of money to make. Generally games get sold around $50 in the US so it doesn't take forever for developers to recoup their costs. Hopefully we can agree that $50 is a reasonable price for a package of 3 kickass games and 2 you probably already played but can "give away" if you do already have them. After all, if you played episodes 1 and 2, chances are you wanna find out what happens in episode 3, and money doesn't grow on trees so valve has to charge you to continue development. Anyway, this point is minor but basically if you like their games, you should probably pay what they're asking instead of hunting around for cheap overseas copies.

Now to make back the money on the development, they had a few options. They could sell it for $50 everywhere, including countries that have significantly less disposable income and can't realistically afford to be spending their local equivalent of $50 on video games. They'll get all the people willing to spend $50 on it in the US, but they lose out on the people in poorer markets that either won't or can't spend more than $15 on it.

Or, they could sell it for $15 everywhere, so they sell a maximum number of copies but won't make as much money per copy. In fact they'd probably make less money overall, since there were certainly a large number of people willing to spend $50 on the "not-region-locked" US copy.

They took option #3. Sell it for a price the market will bear in all markets, but restrict the usage of the cheapest market copies to those markets. This means it gets sold for $50 in the US and anybody who pays the full price can play it anywhere, and it gets sold for $15 or whatever in the countries with lower market values for video games. You guys are screaming bloody murder over this for some reason. All this means is that in countries like Thailand people still get to buy entertainment, but they don't have to spend such a large portion of their income on it, and valve makes a little bit extra money with the long end of the tail. The boxes were (apparently) clearly labeled with a note that those cheap oversea copies will only work in their respective countries. So the problem lies with the middlemen failing to relay this note that the cheap thai copies will NOT work in the US.

If you continue to bitch about this and raise a stink, all that means is that next time, there will be no $15 overseas copy. The people screaming about getting locked out of a game advertised to not work in their territory will just have to pay $50 for the steam version or buy it in their local retail store for whatever price its going for. Or wait till they drop the price, which they always do.

I understand the problem with locking people out of a game they purchased. Except, in this case, the terms of the lockout were stated on the box's exterior and not jumbled up in legalese in a 500 page EULA. So, it was really the buyer's fault for going through unusual channels in the hopes of getting a "good deal" and instead getting a copy not intended for use outside of a certain region.

If you want game makers to continue making games that you like to play, pay the amount of money they're asking in the area you live in. By buying what practically works out to be "charity copies" of a game, you're giving them less money to develop episode 3. If you don't care about their games, obviously you don't have to pay them anything. But if you like them and want them to go on and continue adding maps to TF2 and Portal, you gotta fund that development somehow. Modern video game development, unlike modern music recording, is far too expensive to work on the "pay what you feel like" system. Pay what the game companies are asking for, or don't be disappointed when their game quality slides because they have less money to spend on talent.

We know why they're selling overseas, it's to reach a larger market. And we get why they want to have different prices. But none of that requires anyone else to play along. It's like razor companies with their famous loss-leader marketing model of overcharging for refills. Nothing stops a consumer from buying the cheap kit with handle every time. You take your chances in business, making products appeal to various people.

I run a computer consulting company and it'd be really handy if everyone would agree not to hire any overseas competitors. That'd keep me from having to compete on prices. Does this obligate you to please me? If not, why am I obligated to put up with their actually illegal actions to enforce their cushier profits?

The product as sold would run perfectly without Steam's DRM. It's perfectly legal to buy and to own the product, so Steam's DRM is preventing the use of something which is legal to own and use.

This is all too common. Someone gets an idea for how to make money that isn't supported by the law, but they expect everyone else to bend over backwards to protect them, usually while they do something underhanded like disable keys and force people to buy new copies. This is the idea that wanting to make a profit entitles you to pass your own laws, break existing ones, and defraud people.

How about them pursuing this in the proper fashion? If they think that importing the games is actionable (and they'll be sorely mistaken, but it's their dime) they should sue people who do it. Put the question to the courts. Get a court order before they try to remotely disable the software.

As is, they're simply refusing to provide the product they've advertised. It might be a 'for Thailand' version, but the law doesn't allow them to keep it there. They can't do this. They're breaking the law.

Do you understand?

This is simple. It's not about liking Valve, giving a shit about how long they spent working on the game or anything else. It's *all* about them illegally terminating a legal product.

If it means 'SUGGESTED DONATION' then you're okay with people walking past and paying less. You made a suggestion, they decided otherwise. Maybe someone would look cheap, but that's not a crime. If you *need* money, don't use the word suggested.I know what Valve is doing. (But I find it disingenious the Fanbois keep saying they're doing this to help the poor Thais and how everyone else understands that like every other company since the beginning of time they're simply trying to reach a larger market.) That

I agree with the fact that they should of got a copy of the orange box they ordered, but seeing that they ordered a Thai version, they should of got the local Thai version, with all the wonder of the Thai language.

That makes sense to me, they buy a Thai copy of the game, so they get it in Thai, if they want an english version of the game, then they should of brought it from an english region.

I somehow doubt that they will create a Thai version of the game. I can see it for Windows, but can you imagine the size of the market? I doubt that the average game company would even consider making a version for every language there is.

I agree with the fact that they should of got a copy of the orange box they ordered, but seeing that they ordered a Thai version, they should of got the local Thai version, with all the wonder of the Thai language.

That makes sense to me, they buy a Thai copy of the game, so they get it in Thai, if they want an english version of the game, then they should of brought it from an english region.

That's narrow-minded thinking. What about the million or so native English speakers who live in Thailand? Should th

So a product moved across a national border or an ocean or whatever -- big deal. Happens all the time and that's the nature of the modern world. The copy from India or Taiwan or whatever was legal and I'm sure Valve would prefer that it stay far, far away from the more profitable countries (so as to not illustrate the price disparity) but that's not reality.

No. Valve sold lower value products at lower prices. Why were they lower valued? Because they were region locked to Thailand and Russia. Higher valu

No. The deal finders mistook a lower valued version for a higher valued version. Or perhaps the deal finders were scammed by middlemen who misrepresented the products. These deal finders now understand the phrase "a deal that is too good to be true". When you engage in such deals you should not be surprised to find that you have bought stolen or counterfeit goods. Yes, counterfeit. If the locked Russian/Thai version was sold to US/EU customers then it is counterfeit, a misrepresentation, much like a 2.4 GHz CPU that is remarked as a 3.0 GHz CPU.

No. Valve is screwing over paying customers, plain and simple. They may not like it that people are buying from another market, but that's tough shit. I agree with what the other poster said, if they didn't want it to cross national borders, just make the local copies only in that language. If the servers (for TF2) are segregated by languages (say, like WoW does for their different markets), certainly it shouldn't play on the US servers. But not letting people play the game that they paid for is completely

I rhetorically asked and answered that question in the original post. The lost value *is* the region portability, which is clearly stated *on the box*.

But that is willful disabling rather than regional issues. A software program runs on any Intel/AMD cpu the same regardless of where it runs in the world. Its not like we are dealing with different voltage or FCC (or any other countries equivalent) regulations that make the software not run any better.

The problem we have is that if you win, and Valve fold, allow all these Russian or Thai copies to be activated in the U.S., they're going to have to raise the prices in these poorer countries to reduce the incentive for importers, essentially locking out financially anyone who genuinely wanted a localised copy for a fair price.

Or, they could do what they do in the US: Release the game at price X, then slowly lower the price over the course of time. They could even offer it in Thailand or wherever at a discount if they really wanted - just make that discount be about the same price as the shipping on it would be.

If you only save $4-5 buying something from overseas, 99.9% of people will just pay the couple of extra bucks to get it without having to worry about international shipments, customs, etc. It's when the price becomes $15+

Then again, I could imagine it would be a reasonable compromise for Valve to check you actually played the game for an extended period of time in Russia before you legitimately moved to the US. If it showed you played it for a few weeks in Russia and now you want to play it in the US, then I would agree that they should allow it. If their records show the game was never played in its original country of purchase, then I think they'd have decent grounds to decline your request.

If their records show the game was never played in its original country of purchase, then I think they'd have decent grounds to decline your request.

Why? If they offer you a certain service, say the ability to play a certain game or watch a movie, why does it matter to them where you make use of that service? If I buy a bottle of soda, does the store care where I drink it? If I buy a book, does the publisher care where I read it? So why is a video game any different?

Nowhere on the box did it say, "Requires Steam to be run." So you can imagine my surprise when I tried to install the game and it tried to install Steam instead. I PURCHASED the fracking thing; I have the shiny pressed disc in my hands. Yet they have the audacity to tell me that I need *THEIR* permission to play it whenever I want to.

I tried to take it back to store, but like most places they would only do exchanges on opened software.

You mean like the US? There was no law violated here (by the customers -- Valve might be another matter) that I'm aware of, just some arbitrary policy that Valve probably buried deep in some EULA or something.

In any event, this sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. And the bad publicity is likely to cost Valve/Steam far more than any additional revenue they make from selling the game twice. Valve wants us to believe that we should like Steam, but abusing it like this is not going to help there.

"In any event, this sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. And the bad publicity is likely to cost Valve/Steam far more than any additional revenue they make from selling the game twice."

I know what I'm about to say is not popular on sites like this, but I think it stands to reason. Double selling is not the point from their perspective. This is a form of arbitrage, which they consider wrong. I know people disagree, but I can see the frustration on their end.

They basically have two choices - sell games for cheaper in poorer countries, or not sell them at all in these countries. I commend them for choosing the first option; people in less wealthy countries deserve entertainment too (without the Windows 3rd world crippling mentality). Arbitrage threatens to cut their main sense of revenue: American gamers who can afford American prices. Obviously they could choose the latter option I mentioned above, but this is lose-lose. The Thai can't play Valve games, and Valve loses a legitimate source of revenue.

I'm pretty sure Valve doesn't operate any coding sweatshops in Malaysia.They may hire people from foreign countries on H1B visas, but they actually come to the US, live here, earn, spend, and pay taxes.

Likewise, you're free to travel to Thailand, live there, and buy discounted games.

I just don't get all the hatred for Valve. With their development costs and retailer markups, they'd go bankrupt if they sold the Orange Box here for $15. No one in Thailand could afford it for $50. Does charging poor people

No. Breaking the law and sabotaging legally purchased products make Valve into some sort of monster. Telling people that they're SOL and will need to buy another whole copy, that's monstrous.

I imagine the houses of Valve developers, and their office, and filled with things that weren't made in the USA. Should we "remotely disable" (ie, break in and smash with a hammer) all of these products? It would help local industries, and it would make Valve pay what they can afford. No cheap overseas pencils, only the expensive made in the USA kind. No overseas RAM in their computers, etc...

That'd be fair. They want to disable our products to push a buy-locally message. So they should start.

And really, $15 is a lot more to a poor teenage gamer than to the owners of Valve. They'd need to lose $15,000 or more to feel empathy. Wouldn't it be funny if their cars were all disabled and they had to buy new ones. Like a joke. Except with justice attached.

Valve put a warning on the box that the licenses could only be activated in their respective countries. The foreign resellers conveniently forgot to tell that to people who purchased the software. The resellers misrepresented the product, not Valve.Imagine I pulled off "Academic Use Only", "Upgrade Version", or "Not For Resale" stickers from product boxes, and sold them as full, unrestricted products. How is that any different? Would the developer be to blame? Would they be "breaking the law" and "sabo

There are two different cases, one where the software is different. Where the student version has only half the features. If you resold that as the full version you'd be guilty of fraud. That's not what happened here.In this case though, the software is functionally identical. It will do everything the other one will, but is prevented from doing so by DRM access restrictions.

They're allowed to make a Thai version, or even to stick a sticker on the English version and call it a Thai version, but not to shut

Student versions don't always have half the features, and in fact I'd say that the case of student versions matching the normal versions is greater than the ones that don't. The thing that makes them cheaper is that the user cannot use the product to make something they can sell, the same reasoning behind companies that give away software for free for non-commercial use.
If an uncrupulous company sold a commercial business a student version or a non-commercial version of a program without letting them know

You are allowed to buy from the poorest countries to reduce your cost. You make the assumption that the programmer they'd get in the US is the same as the programmer from the poorer country. This is not the case. Rather than hire Joe, they hire Bob for less. Bob is not Joe, but Bob can do about what Joe does who is more expensive, but does it better.You have the same options. You can buy games like TF2 or Portal or HL2:EP2. They won't be the same games, but they will still be games like them (Fortress

Just curious. Are you also against reimportation of 'cheap' medicines from foreign markets back to the US?You have said that Americans should pay more because they can. What about wealthy foreigners in otherwise poor countries. Are they taking advantage of the local market forces? Should poor Americans get a price break because they are penalized by being in an expensive market?

Now (and here's where it gets interesting...) what if the product isn't software? Pharmaceutical companies make most their profits

Funny, I was actually going to mention drugs, but decided not to because it's slightly off topic. It actually is a very good point, though. Creating different prices for drugs in different countries has the same purpose as software (there are slight differences -for one thing, if you don't provide cheap AIDS drugs to Africans, people will die).But, yes, I am against Americans arbitraging drugs prices. What a lot of people don't know is that First World drug prices - especially in America - are high because

This may be true, in the loosest of senses, but don't underestimate the buying power of a customer that literally represents the population of an entire country. An organisation representing 80M people can cut a pretty sweet deal, relatively speaking, with Big Pharma.Yes, I would be glad to see a great deal of the red tape evaporate. But the thought of being seriously ill in America would fill me with dread, because unless you are loaded, it's a one-way ticket to poverty.

They basically have two choices - sell games for cheaper in poorer countries, or not sell them at all in these countries. I commend them for choosing the first option; people in less wealthy countries deserve entertainment too (without the Windows 3rd world crippling mentality). Arbitrage threatens to cut their main sense of revenue: American gamers who can afford American prices. Obviously they could choose the latter option I mentioned above, but this is lose-lose. The Thai can't play Valve games, and Val

The law still supersedes an agreement. This is why in most contracts there will be some wording along the lines of "If any part of this contract is illegal or unenforceable, the rest of the contract remains in effect".

You mean the agreement that you can't read until you're actually installing the product because it's not printed on the box?

Yes, I think that's the exact agreement he's referring to.

Though my (American) Orange Box says `Please see http://www.steampowered.com/agreement [steampowered.com] to view the SSA prior to purchase'. (SSA = Steam Subscriber Agreement). Excuse me while I go home and look this URL up, then come back to the store to buy it if the EULA meets with my agreement...

Take it home, read the SSA, return the still-sealed box for a full refund?

Sure, that works. But do you think that's actually reasonable? When you buy a car, you agree to a smaller contract than this -- and thats even if you include financing!

Agreeing to 5000 words of legaleze just to play a game? And again, I saw nothing in this legaleze that said that the game was tied to a specific territory or region and they could shut it off if you left it.

Nonsense! An EULA can be called an "Agreement" all day long and that doesn't make it hold water. There are two big things at play here - one, the need for a meeting of the minds, and two, the assumed rights of a consumer who buys something. EULAs don't have the force of binding contracts because you don't sign them before you fork over the money, and you don't sign them before the store hands you the box.

Yes, and you know that "law" stands for "whatever you agree on, we overrule".

The average EULA is null and void where I live, because every EULA I've read so far violates at least one portion of our copyright laws (yes, we still have copyright laws that at least in part include consumer rights) and are thus in total null and void.

What about those that were and are in regions of the world where importing software is allowed like Australia?

I'm assuming you still retain the right to use the Thai version whenever you find yourself in Thailand.

Fact is, the code you have is not for use in Australia - that's not Valve's problem. I would say it's either your problem for not reading the fine print when you purchased the code on a website or, more likely, it's your legitimate beef with the website from where you purchased the code for no

I've bought games while living overseas, and find this a bit disconcerting by Valve. Yes, most (if not all) of the purchasers were trying to save save some money, but the case where the person who is in Thailand and then returns to there home is a legitimate circumstance. However, they are going to run into these problems when moving to this distribution model. I don't know if you can keep selling boxed versions (where this would not be a problem) and distribute electronically and expect to enforce somethin

Incorrect. It said ON THE GAME BOX of all restricted versions of the game that there was territory restriction.

Non-sequitur. You don't get to read the game box unless you're physically present.Most trade these days is over the Internet, where you do NOT get to see the box, and if you do, not in high enough resolution to read any small print. In other words, the customer acts in good faith.

For what it's worth, the exchange rates mean virtually all games on Steam are cheaper in Australia than anywhere you could find the retail versions for. It's not that big a deal here... unless you're on dial-up.

What about those that were and are in regions of the world where importing software is allowed like Australia?

The problem is that our government was set up to protect private citizens from the government. The corporation, which have powers pretty much on par with the government, wasn't really foreseen, so there's nothing in place to protect us from them.

A while ago, the RIAA and FCC held a press conference about some pending legislation. Someone from the audience asked "what about a public representative," and the RIAA guy said "I represent the public." He honestly couldn't see that there was a difference betwe

I have read that in Australia, "region coding" (ala DVDs) has been ruled illegal. Some people have gone so far as to claim that is illegal to sell a region-locked DVD-player there. Since this is slashdot, I'll let someone else actually dig up a citation for or against that claim. Should only be a few more minutes...

I've heard the same, but most of the big shops still sell region 4 only players. It's usually not hard at all to buy one that can be unlocked. I've asked the sales droids for an unlocked player and they've given me codes for it.

The major reason to hate region locking is that we are in region 4 with the Kiwis and Central & South America. A lot of stuff will be produced for region 1 or 2 but will never be 're-coded' for region 4 because "it won't sell enough." (Although some of the smarter producers in

"'Some of these users have subsequently purchased a legal copy after realizing the issue and were having difficulty removing the illegitimate keys from their Steam accounts,' added Lombardi. 'Anyone having this problem should contact Steam Support to have the Thai key removed from their Steam account.'"

I wonder how much time it'll take for all the people accused by Mr. Lombardi of being criminals to sue him for, well, calling them criminals. After all, if, according to Mr. Lombardi, they "subsequently purchased a legal copy", it's clear that's because they "previously hadn't purchased a legal copy", aka, they "previously purchased an illegal copy", aka, "why are all these lawyers looking funny at me?".

That, in addition to the class action suit for not being able to use the software they lawfully purchased, of course.

Illegal is not the same as criminal, so he doesn't accuse them of being criminals. Merely lawbreakers. It is unlikely but possible that the people who bought and installed the Thai versions thereby broke the law. The law in question would then be contract law, and it would depend on the interpretation and binding power of the EULA.

This is what really fucks me off... why on earth should I have to grab a pirated copy of a game, just to be able to play a game that I purchased because the DRM is so fucked up, and were not just talking about Steam here.

I live in a country that is not my native language, I wish to purchase products in MY NATIVE LANGUAGE. I have to import a lot of stuff for this reason.
I may have no other choice than to no longer purchase their product if they block this.
Good luck doing this in Europe also where free trade is REQUIRED.

The only restriction with the Orange Box is if you buy the physical box from Thailand or Russia, then the key can only be used in Thailand or Russia, it states this on the box itself. If you buy it on Steam it'll work any where in the world.

The reason for the Thai and Russian keys being restricted is because Valve sells them cheaper in those markets to help combat piracy. The online retailers who sold the boxes to places outside Thailand did not specify what was on the box to the people buying them.

I just did a quick test with my Steam bought copy of Portal. I can change the language from English to Japanese and all works fine (except the voice over which is only in a few languages). These are clearly stated on the page where you buy it from:

I live in a country that is not my native language, I wish to purchase products in MY NATIVE LANGUAGE. I have to import a lot of stuff for this reason.

I currently live in the UK, I bought the orange box off Steam (in American dollars), so I assume I got the American version. I noticed that I get language options [quickfox.org] in the preferences of the game.

If your native language is one of these, I don't think there will be a problem.

I may have no other choice than to no longer purchase their product if they block this.

enforce than it makes them? I understand they are protecting the rights of distributors and their rights across borders. Hell there could be some stupid trade laws that actually cause fines to be applied to sales across certain borders. Still I wonder if the enforcement costs outweigh the profit per sale, not counting lost customers.

Still, as before, I am amazed at how much people will go out of their way to save twenty bucks or so while sporting 2K gaming machines.

You are not allowed to restrict products to sale in a given region. This is the whole purpose of WTO treaties. It is what allows the US to sell it's food internationally and to import international goods.

The WTO are who brought down the MPAA region codes. They could do the same to Valve.

You are not allowed to restrict products to sale in a given region. This is the whole purpose of WTO treaties. It is what allows the US to sell it's food internationally and to import international goods.

Sale was not restricted, activation was.

If you activate the game in Thai or Russia (where you bought it), you can then play it anywhere.

Only console companies have been doing this same game region lock-out for YEARS. I don't see you complaining about that.

What do you think mod-chip are for? Sure, most of them allow you to also play pirated games, but there are mod-chips out there that remove only the region lock-out while keeping the anti-piracy "features" intact. And yes, people pay for that. The complaining is right there. Exactly one complaint for each dollar spent on mod-chips and their installation.

They do complain, but the difference is that it's made plenty clear (generally anyway) that imported games will not play on your domestic console. This is in stark contrast to the Thai copies of Orange Box, which worked JUST FINE, but were LATER deactivated by Valve. So there's the anger that something that was reasonably legitimate has been banned, and owners were affected *retroactively*

Only console companies have been doing this same game region lock-out for YEARS. I don't see you complaining about that.

Then you're not looking hard enough, because some of us, at least, are complaining. Hell, I haven't owned a console since the SNES, mostly for this reason (along with the persecution of modchip makers, licensing requirements for games, and Nintendo's infamous historic censorship). And if I'd been old enough to understand these issues back then, I probably wouldn't even have an SNES either

No complaining there. People just get modchips to play region locked games, then realize that they can use those mod chips to play copies, then stop buying games altogether.Without region locks, a lot of people wouldn't have gone out of their way to get modchips. They got modchips because they wanted to play some ultrasuperspecialawesome game that isn't available in their region yet, that they could play a copy of it instead of importing it is a benefit. Then they learned just how easy it is to get access t

As fro Korea and WoW, that isn't completed unexpected. Korea got WoW 2 months after it arived in the states. I'm guessing the beta for Korea started after it went live in the US, meaning the game was basically release candidate quality already, they were just testing localization. I don't think Korean players being able to keep their WoW beta characters is that big of a deal.

How many industries outside of gaming, movies, and the like, can get away with offering products in one country at a price that is significantly different from that in others (i.e. no more difference than the cost of shipping from one country to the other)?

Drug companies refuse to sell low-cost HIV/AIDS medicines in Africa and other impoverished, AIDS-affected regions for fear that these products will be sold at a cheap price on the black market in the developed world. So because of the fear that drug prices in developed countries will drop, no drugs are sold at all to the people who need them the most. Drug companies "get away with" charging the same price for the same product when the ethics of the situation seem to dictate that the drugs should be sold at a discounted price in poor countries.

Of course, AIDS vaccinations and video games are two very different things, but the same principle applies. If Valve didn't protect its regional sales like this, some kid in Thailand might not be playing Portal right now, because it would cost too much. Valve's actions are undoubtedly profit-motivated, but they also protect the game's international audience.
Just some food for thought.

What if companies move production to Thailand and pay $1/hr wages to get their product made, then sell them in the U.S. and Europe at rates only slightly lower than those of companies paying U.S. and European wages?

Globalization has to be for producers and consumers, or it's plutocratic bullshit.

The drug thing is sad, but it's a wise move on the part of the pharma companies.Without billions in profits, these companies will not be able to develop good drugs. The corruption in Africa is partly supported by aid that thugs steal and sell. There is little reason to send drugs that will be stolen if that means new drugs will be longer in development.

Africa needs no aid. Aid is the problem. No one is willing to let this continent try to stand on its own feet, so it's miserable.

Older DVD drives use RPC-1 firmware, which means the drive allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces the DVD region coding at the hardware level. These drives can often be reflashed with hacked RPC-1 firmware, effectively making the drive region-free. However, this usually voids the war